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Love it: Skeptics winning in the classrooms

“Climate change skepticism seeps into science classrooms”

The LA Times laments the loss of the totalitarian educational view — pity the poor students subjected to hearing both sides of the story:

Texas and Louisiana have introduced education standards that require educators to teach climate change denial as a valid scientific position. South Dakota and Utah passed resolutions denying climate change. Tennessee and Oklahoma also have introduced legislation to give climate change skeptics a place in the classroom.

In May, a school board in Los Alamitos, Calif., passed a measure, later rescinded, identifying climate science as a controversial topic that required special instructional oversight.

The news itself is interesting, but sadly viewed through the usual green-colored glasses.

Is it “reporting” or a propaganda piece? Let’s check the three boxes:

Box 1: One half of the story is reduced to Orwellian nonsense. Tick yes! — who, exactly, teaches children to deny we have a climate? Johnny, there are no clouds… Which state passes resolutions declaring that the climate does not change? Henceforth California will be 78…

Box 2: Look for the Mandatory Ritual Pean: “scientific evidence increasingly shows that fossil fuel consumption has caused the climate to change rapidly”. Tick two! Ritual complete. Notice that daring sweeping conclusion, of course, is backed by pffft-puffery-nothin’. (Yes we believe that driving causes droughts, and heaters cause hurricanes. Storms are coming, switch off your air-con to save the world!)

Box Three: Find spurious tenuous associations of one view of climate change to a/ Tobacco-propaganda, b/ creationism or c/ Big-oil-profits. Tick b and c. Yessity yes. (How did they manage to leave out the tobacco slur?)

Despite the propaganda, the news is good news. The people are not fooled.

“Any time we have a meeting of 100 teachers, if you ask whether they’re running into pushback on teaching climate change, 50 will raise their hands,” said Frank Niepold, climate education coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who meets with hundreds of teachers annually. “We ask questions about how sizable it is, and they tell us it is [sizable] and pretty persistent, from many places: your administration, parents, students, even your own family.”

You’ve gotta love it.

 

But look out for the “New national science standards for grades K-12 (which) are due in December.” Since they are based on standards from the National Academy of Sorcery, we know logic, reason and evidence will need all the help they can get.

Hat tip: Climate Depot. Thanks Marc.

 

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